


The Things They've Tried to Forget (But For Different Reasons)

by thelittlevoiceofreason



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, Bully, Canon Character - Freeform, Gen, bullying-past, character study: Spencer Reid, character study: alexa lisben, mostly outsider POV, mostly reid-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 22:30:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4076182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlevoiceofreason/pseuds/thelittlevoiceofreason
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reid unexpectedly encounters someone from his past.</p><p>(Or, in other words, someone realizes just how badly she's fucked up.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things They've Tried to Forget (But For Different Reasons)

**Author's Note:**

> Tag to episode 03x16 "Elephant's Memory." I don't own Criminal Minds.
> 
> Also, I'll probably be updated this for a while until I get all the typos out. They're driving me nuts! :)

The first thing she thought when she saw them walking towards her was That’s what I could have been.

There were three of them, smartly dressed with solemn expressions on their faces, with that air of authority around them like We’re here and you’re going to listen to us and we’re going to get the job done. Her eyes traveled over each of them in turn: the dark skinned man with the tattoo peeking out from his T-shirt sleeve, the graying, severe looking man in the suit, and then, sort of behind the other two, a tall and thin young man who walked almost with a certain grace. Dennis had told her this morning that the FBI were coming, and yes, there was no doubt these were they.

They were talking to her roommate, Patrick, who had been the last person to see Fiona Merkle alive. She peeked around the corner to get another glance at them, on closer than the brief glimpse our her second-story window as they walked up to the front door.

The tall one was cuter up close, though he was clearly younger than her. And maybe she should have been more concerned about the three dead girls found over the past week, about the serial killer on the loose, and about the fact that Patrick looked almost like he was on the verge of tears the way he did every time anyone asked him about his dead ex. Instead, she got up, pretended she hadn’t been sneaking looks at them for at least two minutes, and swept into the room, fixing a look of surprise on her face at the “unexpected” guests.

“Oh, hello,” she said. Patrick introduced her as Alexa, and she felt a small thrill that they were actually looking at her. They shook her hand, except for the cute one, who was studying the books on the bookshelf. He definitely wasn’t the same alpha-male type as the other two; he seemed more self-contained, but with a quiet self-assurance like he would follow the other two but could easily take the lead if he needed to.

She offered them coffee because she wanted them to stay just a little bit (a small part of her was ashamed how exciting she thought the whole thing was. A serial killer on the loose, but also the FBI, in her own house. It was kind of like meeting a celebrity). Plus, the tall agent still hadn’t noticed her. She knew the names of the other two--Agents Hotchner and Morgan--but she didn’t know his; she cleared her throat pointedly and raised her eyebrows in his direction, and Agent Morgan took the hint and hastily introduced him as Supervisory Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid.

Doctor, Alexa thought, studying the man’s profile. He could have only just finished his doctorate; he looked not a day over twenty five, twenty seven at the maximum, and it made her suddenly aware of her own age and how this FBI agent had a doctorate and chased down serial killers and was younger than her. She wasn’t old--she was in her mid thirties and still felt like a teenager--but he made her feel like she was ancient, even though she herself had been told multiple times that she looked no older than thirty.

Agent--Doctor?--Reid hadn’t replied to her offer of coffee at all: he was still perusing the shelves, mouthing the titles silently to himself as though he was committing them all to memory, though there was no way he could have read the spines that quickly.

“Agent Reid?” she asked. “Coffee?” She wanted to hear him speak.

He finally looked up from the volumes and Alexa saw he had brown eyes. Something about that face--or maybe his name?--was familiar to her, but she couldn’t place it. A twinge of deja vu, then gone in a flash.

The agent smiled courteously and declined politely and turned quickly back to studying Patrick’s books. Her roommate had always loved the classics.

Patrick shortly thereafter burst into tears, just one more question into the interview, and begged Alexa to stay with him, which she did (she would do anything for Patrick to make him stop crying; he was her closest friend).

Agent Hotchner apologized and Patrick said it was alright, that he just wanted them to find her killer, and the questions resumed. Alexa listened with growing disbelief. Her eyebrows rose further when, upon asking just how these questions were going to help catch the killer, Agent Reid answered calmly as if he had been a part of the conversation this whole time, his mouth spewing vocabulary and terminology and sounding overall very sophisticated and yet, strangely, also like a child talking about one of his favorite subjects. She stared at him, and now that he had finally turned away from the bookshelf she could appreciate his facial features--and she definitely wasn’t disappointed. Big brown eyes, a small crease between his eyebrows, a tiny tug at the corner of his lips like he could frown or smile any moment. Definitely pretty.

She realized she was staring when the agent finished what he was talking about and looked at her. A subtle change came over his face: he blushed slightly and the corners of his lips dipped downwards ever so slightly, and Alexa saw a flash of embarrassment in his eyes before he dropped his gaze to his scuffed black Converse.

She smiled a little to herself and looked away. He was kind of sweet in that he could swing back and forth between smart FBI agent to shy teenager in just one second.

The agents asked only a few more questions before they suddenly were standing and politely thanking Patrick for the interview and heading towards the front door, and she felt a strange stab of disappointment. They were leaving already? She stood up and hurried to open the door for them, smiling at each of them in turn, thought Agent Reid avoided her gaze.

At the last second, as they were getting into their cars, she ran after them. It turned out Agent Reid was the closest, which she was grateful for; she reached out and touched his arm and said his name to get his attention. He turned, looked a bit surprised to see her.

“You’re going to--you think you can catch this guy?” Alexa asked at last, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

The young agent nodded; it wasn’t hubris, just experience. “Yes,” he answered in his warm, almost sing-song voice (what was wrong with her today?), “We’re confident that we’ll be able to find the killer soon.” Then suddenly, like a car veering off the side of the road-- “This may seem weird,” he said, a trifle meekly, “but what did you say your name was? You seem familiar somehow.”

She felt a little surprised, but the words obligingly tumbled out of her mouth like raindrops on a car window. “Alexa Lisben,” she answered quickly.

And his eyes darkened, turned cold so quickly she felt her breath catch in her throat. She took a step away from him, taken aback and confused, and his eyes narrowed slightly and she saw a flash of something in them--anger? pain?--that made her stomach turn over in a strange way, like someone had stepped over her grave. Agent Morgan called his name from the passenger seat of the SUV but Reid ignored him. He stared at her.

Slowly, he said, his voice casual (or mocking casual), “That’s right. How could I have not recognized you? I suppose you’ve changed since the last time I saw you.”

Her confusion doubled. She didn’t know him. She didn’t recognize him. She stared hard at his face, not backing down from his suddenly hostile temperament, but she still couldn’t place him. Sorry, she was saying. Who are you? And his expression turned wry.

“Yeah, I didn’t think you would remember me,” he said with stinging friendliness. “I was twelve the last time you saw me. I’m Spencer Reid, just to refresh your memory.”

 

_(He left her gaping there like a fool.)_

_(His head hurt and his stomach hurt and he felt uncomfortably like he was teneleventwelve again, lonely and scared and impossibly young. Morgan and Hotch watched him as he climbed into the backseat of the car (why was he always relegated to the backseat?--But then why was he making enemies of people he considered his family?--Seeing Alexa again had him all confused) and he knew there was no way they had missed the sudden mood change, cheerful, professional, normal one minute, silent and brooding the next. (He doesn’t brood. He’s an FBI agent for God’s sake.) And then the car started to move as Morgan asked him What That Was All About.)_

_(But Spencer didn’t answer.)_

_(He couldn’t.)_

 

It came to her that night, a prickly kind of dread that crept up her spine in icy tendrils, an idea forming that unfolded slowly someplace in the back of her mind that she thought she had locked up for good. Left behind. Gotten rid of. Patrick ordered pizza for dinner (it was so like him that he would be concerned about her sudden sour mood after just being interrogated by FBI agents trying to find the killer of his ex-girlfriend. She loved him, she really did) but she took her slice up to her room to feel sorry for herself in private.

She tried to convince herself it wasn’t true--Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid, it couldn’t be a terribly uncommon name--and so terrified she was to have her fear come true, she looked up how many Spencers there were in the US and how many Reids there were in the US and comforted herself with the fact that, according to howmanyofme.com (what kind of a website name was that?) there were 48,074 Spencers and 123,566 Reids. (Unfortunately, there were only 9,615 Alexas and fewer than 119 Lisbens in the country. She tried not to think about how unlikely it was Spencer Reid had mistaken her for another Alexa Lisben.)

Except, after about two hours of trying to deny it she couldn’t put it off any longer. It rankled her like an itch she couldn’t scratch, no matter how many books she tried to immerse herself in or chores she tried to distract herself with or minutes spent online trying to let her mind finally release the one thing that had held its fascination all afternoon. But like some little kid with a macabre sense of curiosity, poking at a dead body, she couldn’t leave it alone.

She practically ran up the rickety ladder to the attic where she had stored all of her old boxes and shit from college and high school. Rarely did she ever come up here; there were many things Alexa wanted to forget about. But she came up here enough--enough to know exactly which box she needed and where it was in a heartbeat, her breath coming slightly shorter from the brief exertion and startlingly loud in the muffled silence of the old, dusty space.

The book was were it always was, the page bookmarked like it always was. It fell open at her touch, the spine cracked, the pages yellowed, faded pictures staring up at her, accusing. Her gaze fell in one, just that much younger than all the others, and even if his name wasn’t proclaimed underneath it as some kind of sentence (a death sentence, it felt like) she would have recognized those big brown eyes.

 

_(When he finally got back to the hotel that night, he didn’t get much sleep.)_

_(How could he?)_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Back then, she hadn’t gone to bed planning new methods of torture; she hadn’t woken up each morning to images of his humiliation. She hadn’t even noticed the kid at first, even though he had been in most of her freshman classes. He had been ten years old and tiny. She had just moved from out of state and knew no one.

Upon reflection, Alexa wanted to cry because of how cliche it had been; the lonely new girl who turned popular when she made the cheerleading squad, attracted the attention of every alpha male jock in a two mile radius, became homecoming queen, top of the high school food pyramid, and tormented to poor nerdy kid like it was some kind of sacrifice to the gods of popularity to keep her place in the world secure. But--but that wasn’t it, it really wasn’t. It wasn’t her nature to be such a follower that way. She became class president her sophomore, junior, and senior years, headed the National Honor Society and the yearbook committee, was the team captain of the tennis team, organized charity runs on the weekends, made a point of trying to remember the names of everyone who talked to her. She was the top of the world. Untouchable. Not only pretty, and popular, and nice, but smart, too. The only thing she needed, really needed, was to to be valedictorian. With each award, each achievement, each scholarship, she drove herself more, pushed herself further, her field of view narrowing until there was only one thing she wanted, and one thing she thought would be easy to get, and one thing that she eventually realized she wouldn’t win this time--not with that one person standing in her way.

It wasn’t that she felt pressure from those around her. Her parents were proud and supportive of whatever she wanted to do, didn’t feel the need to push her to the breaking point. Her friends didn’t expect her to be perfect at everything, didn’t laugh at her if she got a point off on a test. No one pushed her to succeed--no one except herself.

So maybe when one of the footballers found a copy of Spencer Reid’s report card in one of the psychology textbooks and saw his flawless A’s, crumpled and forgotten, left absent-mindedly to mark a page as a reference, maybe Alexa was just a tiny bit jealous. Maybe stunned, as well. Maybe she had thought herself on track for valedictorian, had compared her average to the smartest kids in her class and always come out on top. Had worked her ass off to make the grades she did, to be the best. Maybe she hadn’t been expected to be so casually usurped by some tiny, underdeveloped eleven year old.  

The footballers and even other friends of hers had been making fun of Spencer since their freshmen year. Alexa had neither noticed, nor really cared. He wasn’t her problem.

Except then, all of a sudden, he was.

Her sophomore year Alexa had one goal, one thing she had yet to achieve to be the best of the best. One person was standing in her way. So that was how it had begun, really, her dislike born of petty jealousy. And it had been a downward spiral from there.

 

_(He had always wondered what he had done to invoke Alexa’s wrath.)_

_(Not as much at first, because she had really just been another face in the crowd. She’d left him alone their freshman year, because she didn’t care about him or didn’t even notice him, he never knew. She seemed alright from afar; nice, smart. That first year it was mainly the football team and a few others. Then, suddenly, Alexa joined in, kind, smart, pretty Alexa, whom everyone loved, and she was suddenly as ruthless as all the others and the eleven year old, for all his intelligence, couldn’t for the life of him figure out exactly why. Why she was so nice to everyone else but horrible to him.)_

_(She wasn’t the worst of them all, not by far.)_

_(But her betrayal stung the worst.)_

_(She owed him nothing.)_

_(But it just hurt that much more.)_

 

She wasn’t proud of her sophomore and junior years. She felt like she was living a lie: one side of her was the popular, outgoing girl that the whole school adored, the other, some kind of monster. Only, at the time, she hadn’t recognized just how horrible she had been. Lost in the euphoria of… being a teenager? Being successful? Being liked? Everyone else did it, too--or, at least, no one had stopped her. Her involvement in that first prank, that one where the team tied him to the goal post, had been minimal. But it had been enough. Because that first one had been out of spite, but the ones after that bad been because she wanted to. It was--and it shamed her now to think it, even if it was the truth, because it was the truth--fun. Amusing. Entertaining. And as long as she distanced herself from him, hid her face behind those of the others, the guilt didn’t even weigh her down.

It became normal, routine, and something about it loosened the painful coil in her chest that made it hard to breathe sometimes. If it was so bad, she thought, Spencer would tell someone to make them stop. A teacher would tell them to stop. The principal would tell them to stop. Someone, anyone, but no one ever did. Only now does she stop to really wonder why that was.

_(Simple.)_

_(He had no one to tell.)_

She saw him then, in her mind’s eye, some strange combination of how he had been--tiny, shy, silent--and how he was now--grown up, professional, powerful. Doing something that made a difference.  Had he entered the FBI to protect the people like him of the world from the people like her?

And she’d felt so stupid, at the end of her junior year, because she may have started high school the same year he did but that didn’t mean they were going to graduate together. He taken an accelerated path, worked hard and crammed and gotten all his credits by the end of his junior year. He was a genius, after all. In the end, there wasn’t even a competition between the two of them for valedictorian. He graduated top of the class of ‘94, she the class of ‘95. He was there for three years, then gone, like he had never existed in the first place, and that was the end of everything.

 

_(For her. Not for him.)_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Over the past few years, Alexa had taken to coming up here to check the yearbook every so often. She had learned a lot in her college years, and then the years after. Now, on a particularly low night, after a particularly bad day, she came and reminded herself of the name of the boy she had treated so poorly when she was in high school, like a check. Maybe it was a horrible reminder that her life could be worse, look at that kid, that kid whose life had been such shit (and yes, it had been her fault) but hey, she could have turned into the Spencer Reid of life, complete with her very own Alexa Lisben, and wouldn’t that have just been ironic?

She laughed so loudly at the thought that Patrick came and knocked on her door to ask her if she was alright. After she sent him away with an assurance that she was fine, she started flipping the yearbook again, having decided she wanted to look at it in the privacy of her own room, in the full light of--well, night--when had it gotten this late? It was ten o’clock already? She wanted to remember everything. Everything that she had done to him.

But first she was going to get very, very drunk.

She had a few bottles of wine in the basement, which she opened and drank without reservation, and about half an hour later Patrick shuffled downstairs half asleep to find her sitting on the kitchen floor, crying in the dark. God she had been so horrible. So horrible. And when Patrick asked her what was wrong, the whole story came pouring out of her, and it left such a horrible taste in her mouth that she wanted to throw up.

And he just comforted her. Even after she told him, in detail, everything she had done. She had dated a lit major in college for about a year, during an experimental phase, who, it turned out, had bullies of her own. It tore her apart, especially when Alexa had confessed to her, in a moment of heavy intoxication, some of the things she had done to Spencer in her high school years. Olivia broke up with her right then and there, then later told everyone she knew about what Alexa had done. Just when Alexa had dared to hope she had left that mess behind her when she lost contact with her high school friends; just when she hoped for a new beginning, made new friends, began to believe she could forgive herself for what she’d done.

Her new friends stopped talking to her after that, as did most of the people on campus she knew. She had been so horribly, terribly alone, and although no one hurt her or made fun of her or did even a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth of of the things she had done to that kid, she began to feel a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth of what he must have felt like in high school. And it had been so, so much worse for him.

Olivia committed suicide a few months later, and all she could think of was that kid, that kid whose name she couldn’t, at the time, remember. That was the first time she had dug out her yearbook since her graduation--she needed to remember his name. And his name was Spencer Reid.

She just didn’t know how he had taken it all those years.  

 

_(She didn’t know how many times he had cried himself to sleep in his sophomore year.)_

_(--Too many--)_

_(And she didn’t know how many times he had cried himself to sleep his junior year.)_

_(--Exactly zero--)_

_(Because by the time it had become routine for her it had become routine for him too.)_

_(He got used to it.)_

_(Maybe even embraced it.)_

_(Because at the time his life had been so messed up and confusing and tumultuous and at times he could barely make heads or tails of it, and at least their hatred was constant, it was the one constant thing in his life, and his mother could turn green and start speaking Chinese and his father could quit being a lawyer and take up alien hunting and the sky could rain cocoa puffs and the sun could dissolve into thousands and thousands of tiny little rocketships and William and Diana and Spencer Reid could even start being a family again but at least he could go to school and they would still hate him. They would hurt him and torment him and call him names, like they usually did. He could count on that. He could count on that like clockwork, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.)_

_(Eventually he even began to wonder.)_

_(He began to wonder if the things they said about him were true.)_

_(If so many people believed the same thing--)_

_(--How could it be wrong?)_

 

 

* * *

 

It was the next day and Patrick had left for work. She decided to take the day off to feel sorry for herself, even though she knew she really had no right (but she was also nursing a terrible hangover so she allowed herself, just this once).

She wondered if she could go talk to him.

Say sorry.

But would he accept her apology? She knew she wouldn’t, if she were in his place.

The doorbell rang. Alexa got up to answer it.

 

_(Tick. Tock.)_

_(And then it came to him all of a sudden, the connection hitting him out of nowhere, and it was because his mind was so muddled after his meeting with Alexa that he noticed it and jumped up with a wordless exclamation because he was speechless.)_

_(Tick.)_

_(He hesitated only for half a second before he was running out the door, his team running after him shouting What is it Reid? What is it? And he couldn’t believe they hadn’t guessed it before they had been so blind and he was at the SUV and crying for Garcia to look up Alexa’s phone number as soon as she possible could!)_

_(And he thought grimly:)_

_(Oh look how the tables have turned.)_

_(Tock.)_

 

 

* * *

 

 

It came to her in flashes, through the blur of tears and pain and fear. A gun to her head. Rows of lockers. Empty. A school, she realized. People shouting, moving, lights pounding nails into her skull stop stop stopstopstop you’re making it worse shut up who’s there? Drop the gun, they’re shouting and is that Spencer? That’s Spencer. He has a gun. They all have guns and they are pointing them at her and yelling at her to drop the gun. She doesn’t have a gun. She can’t drop the gun because she doesn’t have a gun but the man behind her does--oh, they’re talking to him. He has a gun. And he’s pointing it at her head and screaming and it’s making her ears ring. He must have hit her really hard.

And then the terror really sets in because holy shit, a madman is holding a gun to her head. He’s going to kill her. He’s going to kill her and she doesn’t want to die. She lets out a muffled plea, but the man’s hand is over her mouth and she can barely breathe. She looks at Spencer--she knows him, he’s with the FBI, he can save her--except he’s younger than her. Why did that matter? What was wrong with her brain? She was becoming more and more alert but more and more frantic and she was having weird thoughts.

Then Spencer comes into focus and he’s raising his hands, speaking slowly and clearly, telling the man holding her that he just wants to talk and now he’s going to put his gun away, okay, he just wants to talk. And he puts his gun in the holster that she hadn’t noticed the other day when he was at the house and how long has it been because she needs to let her friend’s dog out into the yard because she’s away for the weekend. It was around noon the last time she checked.

“Just put down the gun, Liam,” Spencer is saying calmly, wide eyes staring at a stop above her head, his hands out like he’s trying to tame a wild animal. “We can talk about this. Alexa isn’t Danielle, Liam. Her name is Alexa Lisben and she has a family and friends who want her back safe. Alexa never hurt you, Liam.”

She tries not to listen to the killer--Liam--shouting that she may not have hurt him, but she will hurt someone, he knows the type, they’re all the same, catty and cruel and selfish and she closes her eyes for a moment because isn’t it true? Isn’t it? In fact, she hurt that man, that man right there trying to get Liam to lower his gun and half of her wonders why he even cares after what she did to him. Her eyes open and find his. She can’t read what he’s thinking. He just looks at her, and then he’s trying to convince the man to let her go, she’s not like Danielle was, and Liam keeps screaming back it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, she’s just like Danielle was and if she hasn’t hurt anyone yet she will, she will, he knows the type. Alexa realizes the exact same minute Spencer does that he’s getting nowhere, and she sees the change that comes over his face and it’s so, so strange to see the tiny kid she bullied in high school for being a nerd trying to save her life by facing down an armed crazy man. The whole situation is fucked up. What the hell is wrong with the world?

And then next thing she knew Spencer was shrugging like it was no skin off his nose, like he was just done, an actor after his scene ended, and even his tone of voice changed. “Alright,” he said simply. “You’re right. You really are. Alexa and I went to high school together--”

Her stomach filled with ice.

“--and she tormented me nonstop until I graduated. I can’t pretend anymore, Alexa, I can’t,” and he put his hands up with disgust, like he was so, so done with the situation, his voice filled with scorn. The other agents didn’t even bat an eyelash, just kept their guns level at the killer until Spencer gave them a flippant hand gesture like, C’mon, guys, don’t even bother, put the guns down, this guy’s right. And she felt like screaming when they did. They were just going to let her die? They were going to let him kill her right in front of them? Because of the things she’d done in high school? She screamed against the hand holding her mouth closed and squirmed weakly against his hold as Spencer began, in a heated, angry tone, to describe to Liam all the things Alexa had done. He listed them off, described them in gruesome detail, ones even Alexa herself had forgotten about, and even the FBI agents behind him, his team, with their guns now in their holsters were looking at her slightly horrified. She wriggled frantically, something she hadn’t dared to try for fear the man would shoot her right then and there, but now that she had no chances left she had no other choice. Strangely, he didn’t shoot her. And as Spencer started to get more animated in his descriptions, looking into Alexa’s eyes as he spoke, she couldn’t help but go limp, shame draining the fight out of her. His anecdotes transfixed her in some horrible way, all her sins laid out before her, with him stand in front of her as a hot-shot FBI agent, slowly walking closer, his eyes fierce, and it was like he was taunting her. Isn’t that right, Alexa? he would say sometimes, and everytime he said her name she whimpered.

But then a strange thing happened, and the gun lifted slightly from her head and the killer interrupted in a confused voice, “No, that’s not true are--are you trying to trick me? You’re trying to--”

And then with an impossibly shocking stab of relief Alexa realized what Spencer was doing just as he snatched her arm and jerked her away so quickly her head spun at the sudden movement. She heard a gunshot, braced herself for the pain, but it never came, and then there were more gunshots and the sound of things falling and Spencer’s hand dropped from her arm and people shouted and grabbed her and tugged away, down the long, shiny halls lined with metal lockers out the door and there were more people outside and she was passed from hand to hand. She realized Spencer had distracted them with his words, sneaking closer and closer, catching him off guard, but that didn’t mean the words he said were untrue, because they weren’t. They were one hundred percent true. And that’s what killed her about the whole thing.  

 

_(Tick.)_

_(Tock.)_

_(Tick.)_

_(Tock.)_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Supervisory Special Agent Derek Morgan was walking towards her, his face unreadable, his mouth set in a firm line. She was sitting in the back of an ambulance with a shock blanket draped over her shoulders, even though she hadn’t really been hurt except for where Liam had hit her with the butt of his gun when she answered the front door. There wasn’t even any blood, just a bruise, and she had been tested for a concussion already. She watched the agent approach.  

“So you’re Alexa Lisben,” said Derek Morgan.

She looked up at him, dazed, her eyelashes still damp from the floor of tears unleashed just moments before Spencer Reid saved her life. A few of them still trickled down her cheeks every now and then, but she was too tired to stop them.  

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she sniffled.

“I think you know,” said Agent Morgan.

She knew exactly what he meant. Spencer must have told him about her, and there was nothing good to be said. Her eyes lowered in shame.

“I’ve changed,” she whispered.

“Maybe,” Morgan answered. “But whether you’ve changed doesn’t matter to him. The damage had already been done.”

“That’s none of your business,” she murmured, her nerves frayed. Her fingers twitched. There were so many people around that she hadn’t seen Spencer leave the building. She couldn’t stop herself from looking for him. She knew she had to say something to him, anything, she would hate herself if she didn’t.  

“But now it is my business,” Morgan answered tartly. “If it involves my friends, it’s my business. The only reason I’m here right now is to meet the person who tormented one of my closest friends in high school and made his already shitty life hell.”

She was too tired to argue. Instead she said mournfully, “I’m sorry.”

“If you really think that’s enough, then you have no idea of the consequences of your actions,” Morgan said angrily. “All I have to say to you is this: if you ever hurt Spencer Reid again, you’ll have this entire team to deal with, and trust me when I say we’re dangerous when angry, so you better watch. Your. Step.”

He turned away but she called, “Wait! Is he okay?”

Morgan turned back around and looked at her, his expression back to neutral. She amended nervously, “I mean, I heard gunshots. I haven’t seen him.”

“He’ll live,” the agent answered as he walked away, then added, “No thanks to you.”

She shivered and pulled the blanket tighter against herself, feeling tears prickle at her eyes again. She fucked up, and she knew it. This whole situation was messed up. But one thing was for certain: she was not going to able to forget Spencer’s eyes as he recounted her crimes for a long, long time.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_(It was nice to have his team with him at the hospital. He had never like hospitals in the first place, less so when he was there to get a bullet pulled out of his shoulder. It hurt, but he’d felt worse. And his team was always there, someone or another briefly touching his arm or ruffling his hair, just a little physical contact to let him know they were there. Worried clucking from JJ and Alex, of course, who simultaneously hugged him and scolded him for putting himself in harm’s way.)_

_(None of them said anything about Alexa, even though he knew they were thinking about her and the horror stories from his childhood that he had shared to catch the unsub by surprise. He knew that’s why they were being so protective of him, because that’s what it came down to: the hugs, and comforting touches, they were for their own benefit as well as his.)_

_(He was eternally grateful he had such amazing friends.)_

 

 

* * *

 

 

She found them celebrating later that night at a bar not far from her house, even Spencer, who's arm was wrapped in a sling. They all sat around one table in the corner and clinked their glasses together, high-fiving and patting each other on the back and generally reveling in a buoyant mood after a successful case. Alexa figured they didn't really have a lot of "good" cases; they caught serial killers, after all. That had to wear on them after a while, and there had to be those cases that never left them alone. It had to be a hard job. Hell, Spencer had gotten shot. (It was still strange to think of the timid boy she'd known in high school as this brave FBI agent, facing down criminals every day.)

She didn't know how to approach him, struck suddenly with an uncharacteristic bout of shyness. Morgan had made it more than clear that he would tolerate no nonsense from her, and she really didn't want to interrupt their celebration. Spencer looked so happy, and it was a look she had never seen on him. It suited him. He deserved a group of close friends who would have his back and support him and care about him, like he never had  as a child. They clearly did care deeply about each other, she noticed. 

Eventually Spencer excused himself to "get a breath of air," he said. She followed him outside, her stomach fluttering nervously. She only had one shot at this, and it could go horribly wrong, but she had to try to fix this. And she had to know why.

"Spencer," she said as she slipped out the door behind him. He turned, and his expression was unsurprised, like he had been waiting for her. 

"You want to know why I did it," he said without preamble. He put his one hand in his pocket, his other resting limply in the sling. She shouldn't have been surprised, really; she had researched the Behavioral Analysis Unit, and she knew that it was his job to get into people's heads, figure out what makes them tick. And, if the Internet was to be believed, Spencer Reid and his team were some of the best profilers in the business. (She had learned all about his 187 IQ, his doctorate degrees, his reputation. He was the youngest FBI agent to graduate the academy, and the youngest profiler on the team. His mind was an exceptional one, and she knew then that if it had come down to the two of them to compete for valedictorian, she would never have even stood a chance.) 

She nodded; there was no point in denying it. 

"I did it because it's my job," Spencer said. He cocked his head at her. "I've saved worse people than you from the hands of a serial killer. The thing is, Alexa... how should I put this?... You don't matter to me anymore." He shrugged his one good shoulder and shook his head. "I've moved on. Nothing's going to change what happened."

Then his expression turned a trifle wry. "But mostly I did it to prove that I'm not you. I'm not petty. Letting you live or die, that was no question. You don't deserve to _die_ for what you did, Alexa."

"I'm sorry," she said suddenly. She had to say it. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for everything. Can you ever forgive me?"

He leaned against the brick alley wall and studied her with his big brown eyes. "When a serial killer feels that way, we say he's showing remorse. In male unsubs, or unknown subjects, we commonly see that in the way he dumps the body, or in the way he kills them. A quick death shows remorse. Arranging the body to look peaceful is a sign of remorse."

"I'm not a serial killer," she said uneasily. 

"Did you know that psychopaths can't feel remorse?" Spencer continued as if she hadn't spoken. "They can't feel love, either. Even sociopaths can at least _somewhat_ feel empathy, the neuroscience on the subject is really quite fascinating--"

"Why do you keep calling me a psychopath?" Alexa cried. "I'm not a psychopath. I'm not."

"Maybe not," he said reasonably. He absently rubbed his shoulder. "Suggestion is a powerful thing, isn't it? It affects people of all ages and walks of life. Isn't it funny how, if you can figure out the right buttons to press, you can almost get the other person to start believing what you say? I compared you to serial killers twice and you got defensive. Can you imagine what repetitive emotional abuse like that would do to the psyche of, say, a twelve year old in a Las Vegas public high school?"

He was smiling pleasantly at her. She closed her mouth. What was there to say to that?

"Do you think that, after three years of being called a freak, he might just start to believe it's true?"

"I'm sorry," she said again, her voice a whisper. It wasn't enough, she began to realize, it would never be enough.

"What did you say?" Spencer wasn't smiling anymore.

"I said I'm sorry!" She yelled the words at him like it was some kind of weapon, a barb. 

"You said that already," he pointed out. He rubbed his eyes wearily and before she could respond, he said, "Look, I need to go back in, but you asked whether or not I can forgive you. And the truth is, Alexa, I can't. Not today. Not tomorrow." He shrugged helplessly. "Maybe not ever. I was so angry at you for a long time, but now I'm just so tired of this whole thing. 

"So, I guess we'll see. We'll see. Only, don't hold your breath. You say you're sorry? That you've changed?" He met her gaze. "Prove it."

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_(He felt like that particular chapter of his life had come to an end, and he was grateful. Because what he had to said back there to Alexa  had been true: she didn't matter anymore. He had moved on.)_

_"Hey, Pretty Boy!" Morgan called his name from the table. "Get yo' ass over here! You're going to have fun tonight if it kills me!"_

_(He smiled and rejoined his friends and Alexa Lisben was forgotten. Because these people, his team, his family, they mattered.)_

 

 


End file.
